SouthCoast would be biggest beneficiary of costly state transportation plan

Tuesday

Jan 15, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 15, 2013 at 1:25 PM

The Patrick administration's long-awaited comprehensive transportation plan includes a fully funded, $1.8 billion SouthCoast rail project, but the improvements will come at a steep cost to taxpayers.

STEVE DeCOSTA

The Patrick administration's long-awaited comprehensive transportation plan includes a fully funded, $1.8 billion SouthCoast rail project, but the improvements will come at a steep cost to taxpayers.

The plan, announced Monday, outlines the need for additional funding of $1.02 billion a year for the next 10 years to address the state's current transportation needs and problems and set the course for future economic growth.

The Department of Transportation report said some of that money would come from system reforms and modernization, but "also acknowledges the need for additional revenue to meet its ambitious goals." Those recommendations include an increase in the gas tax, sales tax or income tax; a new green fee on vehicle registrations; a vehicle-miles-traveled tax; regular and modest fare, fee and toll increases, and "new tolling mechanisms."

In endorsing the plan, Gov. Deval Patrick said he would indicate his preferred means for raising the additional revenue in his State of the State address Wednesday and in his fiscal 2014 budget plan next week.

"What's plain as day is that we have to make choices," Patrick said. "We can choose to invest in ourselves, to invest in a growth strategy that has been proven time and again to work, or we can choose to do nothing.

"But let us be clear: Doing nothing is a choice, too. And that choice has consequences. It means longer commutes, cuts in services, larger fare and fee increases and a continuation of the self-defeating economics of cutting off large parts of our population from opportunity and growth."

The proposed investment in SouthCoast is substantial. The $1.8 billion for commuter rail from New Bedford and Fall River to Boston is the largest single project in the plan and, the governor said, non-negotiable.

"The South Coast Rail project is enormously important," Patrick said in a phone interview after the presentation. "South Coast Rail has to be part of the ultimate plan. There's not going to be a plan that has my signature on it that does not have South Coast Rail in it.

"The SouthCoast has been economically cut off for a long, long time and now is the time to deal with that," the governor said. "We've had some self-defeating economics in the commonwealth for a long time, starving certain regions of infrastructure investments in favor of one big project in downtown Boston. In the future, we need to pay attention to the whole of the commonwealth."

The rail project "will result in greater mobility for SouthCoast residents and less congestion on Route 24," the administration said in a prepared statement. "The project is expected to create 3,800 jobs and generate $500 million in new economic activity statewide annually."

The area also would benefit from a $5.4 million increase in funding for the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority (SRTA) next year, improvements to Route 6 and Faunce Corner Road in Dartmouth and reconstruction of Route 18 from Cove Street to Griffin Court in New Bedford and interchange improvements at Routes 24 and 140 in Taunton.

"The reason this is in here is not primarily because of the casino" proposed by the Mashpee Wampanoag, Patrick said of the Taunton interchange work. "It's a choke point, as you know, so it's an investment we ought to be making."